Cunanan Houseboat Stay Was Quirky

Door Lock In Butter Dish

Bathtub Used As Trash Bin

MIAMI BEACH — Serial killer Andrew Cunanan lived like a slob in the houseboat he picked as a hideout after murdering fashion designer Gianni Versace.

The gay gigolo also did some odd things before taking his own life in the boat after a nationwide hunt for him, Miami Beach police detectives said on Wednesday.

For example, after breaking into the sky-blue houseboat near the Fontainebleau Hilton Hotel, Cunanan took the door lock and placed it in a butter dish inside the refrigerator, police said.

He also used the upstairs bathtub as a trash bin in which he dumped soft drink cans, papers and bloodied cotton balls. He used those balls to nurse a stomach wound.

Miami Beach police revealed these details at what was billed as its final news conference about the killing of Versace _ the biggest department case ever.

It was the first time detectives were available to answer questions about the killing on July 15, when Cunanan, 27, walked up to Versace, 50, on the steps of Versace's Miami Beach mansion and shot him execution-style.

The team, including lead Detective Paul Scrimshaw, offered no new details about why Cunanan killed Versace or about why he picked the houseboat as a hideout afterward.

Detectives said they are not sure whether Cunanan and Versace knew each other, or why Cunanan picked Versace as a target.

Today, detectives think a sighting of Cunanan near a sailboat docked near the houseboat was the strongest public tip they received. Newspapers from the day after the Versace murder were found inside the boat, they said.

Police considered four possible motives for the killing: a professional hit, an aborted robbery, a grand gesture for notoriety, or retribution for a real or imagined wrong. The latter two are the most probable motives, detectives said.

Investigators said their biggest regret was that Cunanan took any motives or clues with him to his grave.

``We had a million questions we wanted to ask him,'' Sgt. George Navarro said.

On Wednesday, police also released crime scene and other photos _ including one of the semiautomatic Taurus that Cunanan used to kill Versace, two others and himself.

Other photos revealed the room at the Normandy Plaza hotel that Cunanan called home for two months. He left behind 19 Miami Public Library books, mostly on art.

Another photo showed the messy interior of the red Chevrolet pickup truck that Cunanan stole from one of his five murder victims on a cross-country rampage. He used the truck, which was littered with some of his designer clothes, to get around South Florida.

Another photo showed the squalor Cunanan left behind at the Collins Avenue houseboat where police said he hid out for several days.

No autopsy photographs were released. In the houseboat, Cunanan rearranged the furniture. And though he killed himself in an upstairs bedroom, Cunanan appeared to have slept mostly on a loveseat in the living room that he covered with a flat sheet.

Today, the houseboat is at the bottom of the Indian Creek Waterway, waiting for the city to haul it away. The owner, a German businessman, abandoned it after it was damaged a few weeks ago.

The case also brought about some changes in the Miami Beach Police Department. Because of the Cunanan case, its system of tracking pawnshop transactions has been updated and its SWAT team reactivated.